Use of Agent Orange Not A War Crime?

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GMW: Use of Agent Orange Not A War Crime?

" GM WATCH " <info

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 10:48:42 GMT

 

 

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Use of Agent Orange Not A War Crime?

 

 

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IG Farben, referred to below, was a cartel of BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, and

other German chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Bayer developed

Zyclon B which was sold both as a pesticide and for the purpose of

gassing

concentration camp inmates.

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Re: Use of Agent Orange Not A War Crime Says Judge

Giuseppe Furioso

letters

 

To The Editor,

 

Today's New York Times (3/11/05) reported that Judge Jack B. Weinstein

had dismissed a lawsuit brought on " behalf of millions of Vietnamese

that

claimed American chemical companies committed warcrimes by supplying

the military with the defoliant Agent Orange. "

 

The civil suit sought billions of dollars in damages for environmental

clean up and for the legacy of birth defects and other health problems

associated with dioxin, which is the active ingredient in Agent

Orange. In his ruling to dismiss the charges, Weinstein said that the

United

States was party to " no treaty or agreement, expressed or implied " that

made the use of " herbicides in Viet Nam a violation of international

law " . He further pointed out that until 1975 when then President Gerald

Ford adopted a policy against the use of herbicides in war, only gasses

that had anasphyxiating or toxic affect on humans where outlawed.

Defoliants that " were designed to affect plants and may have had

unintended

harmful side affects on people " apparently did not meet Judge

Weinstein's criteria for a toxic or poisonous agent.

 

I find Judge Weinstein's reasoning astounding insofar as anyone with an

IQ above 70 has to know that anything that will kill plant life is also

toxic to humans... all one has to do is read the label on any popular

weed killer.

 

Now if something such as " Round-Up " (a commercial weed killer) used by

homeowners to kill dandelions warns that it can be fatal to animals if

ingested, the consequence of Agent Orange which was designed to

defoliate an entire jungle, have to be obvious even to an idiot.

 

Perhaps the good judge would have rendered a different opinion had he

researched the case of Dr. Bruno Tesch. Tesch was the inventor of the

infamous Zyclon B that allegedly was used by the Germans to exterminate

millions of the Judge's fellow tribesmen. Following World War ll, Tesch

and a colleague were arrested as war criminals for supplying the

Germans with vast amounts of this commercial pesticide. Both were found

guilty and executed.

 

Joe

giuseppefurioso

 

NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/10/nyregion/10cnd-oran.html

 

 

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